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BOSTON — A U.S. judge in Boston has ruled that a federal gay marriage ban is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define marriage.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro on Thursday ruled in favor of gay couples' rights in two separate challenges to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

The state had argued the law denied benefits such as Medicaid to gay married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal since 2004.

Tauro agreed, and said the act forces Massachusetts to discriminate against its own citizens.

The Justice Department argued the federal government has the right to set eligibility requirements for federal benefits — including requiring that those benefits only go to couples in marriages between a man and a woman.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BOSTON (AP) — A U.S. judge in Boston has ruled that a federal gay marriage ban is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right a state to define marriage.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro on Thursday ruled in favor of gay couples' rights in two separate challenges to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

The state had argued the law denied benefits such as Medicaid to gay married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal since 2004.

Tauro agreed, and said the act forces Massachusetts to discriminate against its own citizens.

The Justice Department argued the federal government has the right to set eligibility requirements for federal benefits — including requiring that those benefits only go to couples in marriages between a man and a woman.

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Originally posted by Kit

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Originally posted by Schala

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Awesome... this is a huge, HUGE step forward for the LGBT community...

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... in america This is nothing short of old news for gay couples in europe

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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The Honorable Vaughn R. Walker
Chief Judge of the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
450 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, California 94102

Re: Perry v. Schwarzenegger, Case No. C-09-2292 VRW

Dear Chief Judge Walker:

I write on behalf of Plaintiffs and Plaintiff-Intervenor to bring to the Court’s attention
yesterday’s decisions in Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, No. 1:09-cv-10309-JLT (D. Mass. July 8, 2010) (Tauro, J.) (attached hereto as Exhibit A) and Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Department of Health and Human Services, No. 1:09-cv-11156-JLT (D. Mass. July 8, 2010) (Tauro, J.) (attached hereto as Exhibit B). Gill holds that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) violates equal protection because it is not rationally related to a single legitimate governmental purpose.Explaining that the rational basis test “demands somereasonable relation between the classification in question and the purpose it purportedly serves,”Gill, slip op. at 37, the court dismantled each and every justification proffered for DOMA.In so doing, the court considered and rejected many of the same irrational justifications asserted by Proponents in defense of Proposition 8. Gill flatly rejected the alleged interest in “responsible procreation,” explaining that “a consensus has developed among the medical, psychological, and social welfare communities that children raised by gay and lesbian parents are just as likely to be well-adjusted as
those raised by heterosexual parents.”Id. at 23-24.In any event, “a desire to encourage heterosexual couples to procreate and rear their own children more responsibly would not provide a rational basis for denying federal recognition to same-sex marriages” but, rather, would serve only to harm the children of same-sex couples.Id. at 24.And “the ability to procreate is not now, nor has it ever been, a precondition to marriage in any state in the
country.”Id. at 25. The court also dismissed the “asserted interest in defending and nurturing heterosexual
marriage”:“[T]his court cannot discern a means by which the federal government’s denial of benefits to same-sex spouses might encourage homosexual people to marry members of the opposite sex.And denying marriage-based benefits to same-sex spouses certainly bears no reasonable relation to any interest the government might have in making heterosexual marriages more secure.”Id. In addition,Gill held that Congress could not “deny recognition to same-sex marriages in order to make heterosexual marriage appear more valuable or desirable” because doing so would inflict significant harm on same-sex couples, and “a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group” is not a legitimate government interest.Id. at 25-26 (quoting U.S. Dep’t of Agric. v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 534 (1973)). The court also held that DOMA may not be sustained “by reference to the objective of defending traditional notions of morality”—an objective that was categorically rejected in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). Gill, slip op. at 26. Likewise,Gill rejected the government’s argument that it was rational for Congress to
preserve the “status quo”:“[T]his court seriously questions whether it may even consider preservation of the status quo to be an ‘interest’ independent of some legitimate governmental objective that preservation of the status quo might help to achieve.Staying the course is not an end in and of itself, but rather a means to an end.”Id. at 32-33.The court also dismissed as an “utterly unpersuasive excuse” the government’s purported interest in
lessening the “administrative burden” that would result from recognizing same-sex
marriages.Id. at 35-36.
Because “the proffered rationales for [DOMA] are clearly and manifestly implausible,” the court explained, “animus is the only explicable basis.”Id. at 37 (internal quotation marks omitted).And because “animus alone cannot constitute a legitimate government interest,” “DOMA lacks a rational basis to support it” and violates equal protection.Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

In a separate decision addressing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s claim that DOMA violated the Tenth Amendment and the Spending Clause, the court also concluded that, by forcing Massachusetts to enforce DOMA, the federal government would be requiring Massachusetts to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Commonwealth of Mass., slip op. at 27. The companion decisions inGill and Commonwealth of Massachusetts thus provide further, compelling support for Plaintiffs’ and Plaintiff-Intervenor’s claim that Proposition 8 violates equal protection because none of the unfounded rationales asserted by Proponents in
justification of Proposition 8 can sustain this discriminatory law.

Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Theodore B. Olson
Theodore B. Olson
Counsel for Plaintiffs
TBO/eam
Enclosure(s)

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Originally posted by Lunaria

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You know, posting those letters without a summary is kinda pointless, I have a hard time understanding just about anything of what they say, I don't even know if it's positive or not. :/

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August 3, 2010

ANNOUNCEMENT

On August 4, 2010, the court will issue its written order containing findings of fact and conclusions of law following the court trial held in January and June of this year. The order will be e-filed in the court's Electronic Case Filing system, and will be immediately available thereafter through ECF and PACER. There will be no court proceeding associated with the publication of the order.

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Judge: “I’m asking you to tell me how [marriage equality] would harm opposite-sex marriages….”

Pro-Proposition 8 Attorney Cooper: “Your Honor, my answer is: I don’t know. I don’t know.”

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